From the spreading of the Teutonic tribes, new nations were formed in Western Europe. The Franks pressed into Northern Gaul. Their name remains in Franconia, and in that portion of Gaul called France. In Italy, Spain, and Acquitaine, the Goths and other Teutonic peoples mingled with the Romans. From the Latin language, corrupted and mixed up with other tongues, arose the Italian, Spanish, Provençal, and French languages, all, from the name of Rome, called the _Romance_ languages. The eastern empire still went on; in the sixth century it recovered for a time Italy and Africa. Its people called themselves Romans, but were not so much Roman as Greek. After a lengthened decline, its last fragments were destroyed by the Turks, who took Constantinople in 1453.
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It was fortunate for Britain that it came under the rule of Rome, not in the time of the Republic, when the conquered peoples were ruined by spoliation and enslavement; nor yet in the earlier years of the empire, a time of conflict and unsettlement, but after the death of the infamous Caligula, when Claudius had assumed the purple. At the beginning of the second century the Roman Empire was, under Trajan, at its culminating point of magnitude and power. Trajan was succeeded by Hadrian, whose governmental solicitude was shown in continuous journeying over his vast empire; and by the general construction of border fortification, of which the wall in Britain, linking the Tyne with the Solway Firth, is an example. Antoninus followed Hadrian, and of him it has been said: “With such diligence did he rule the subject peoples that he cared for every man of them, equally as for his own nation; all the provinces flourished under him.” His reign was tranquil, and his fine personal qualities obtained for him the title of _Pius_. Of course for Britain it was the rough rule of military conquest; but it prevented tribal conflicts, secured order, and encouraged material development; corn was exported, the potter’s wheel was at work, there was tin-mining in Cornwall, and lead-mining in Northumberland and Somerset; iron was smelted in the Forest of Dean.
But distance from the seat of government, as well as its murky skies, and wintry severity—no vines, no olive or orange trees in its fields— made Britain an undesirable land for Roman colonisation; it was held chiefly as a military outpost of the empire.